IBM and HCL, who took over the development of the old IBM Collaboration Solutions portfolio a few months back, minus IBM Connections, held a joint webinar today to present their plans for IBM Notes/Domino v10. You can see the recording of the webinar here.

The people who held the webinar were Bob Schultz, GM IBM Collaborative Solutions & Talent, Andrew Manby, Director IBM Product Management Collaboration Solutions and Richard Jefts, GM/VP HCL Collaborative Solutions. The idea is that contrary to what IBM did before, the whole process towards a finished release of Domino 10 will be transparent. And this is just the first part of the new regime of information. There will be more webinars, blog postings and information sessions at the IBM Think conference, as well as at user group meetings.

The main points of what is coming in Domino 10:

Slimmer, faster and better looking Notes client

Missing mail features will be added

Better Microsoft integration for mail and productivity applications

Use of modern development tools and frameworks

Better core performance and functionality

Easy to use authentication and administration

Even better integration with Outlook and Sametime

There will be a lot of new development on the mobile experience, both for mail and apps

The Sametime client will from now on give you persistent chats through all platforms (about time!)

The most important details they gave us about Domino:

Active Directory integration made much simpler (how I wish that had been the case 3 years ago)

256 GB NSF-files!

Automated database repair

Replica and synch-up and currency monitoring

Full text auto update on search and resilience

Docker Enterprise Edition images will be available

ID/Vault management improvements

SAML IPD upgrades (including ADFS4.0) for single signon

A much improved API which makes it easier to read from and write to NSF files

Exchange Web Services to connect to Exchange and Outlook clients in a much better way than today

We were given a short demo of some of the Notes functionality, but thus far a new design of the client was nowhere to be seen. New Notes functionality highlights:

You can edit rich text fields in Word instead of Notes

You can schedule (ie: delay) emails

You can mark several emails and send them as attachments in a new email

You an now invite other s to an appointment or meeting

Something a lot of developers and Javascript fans no doubt will cheer for is that Node.js will be added to the Domino development environment. This will make it much faster and easier to develop modern solutions, both in the Notes client and on mobile and web.

Jason Gary then did a guest appearance and showed how he used Node.js and the REST API to write and read from a very simple nsf-file.

Domino 10 will be released in the second half of 2018. And yes, there will be a beta plan announced. I’ll sign up for it, no doubt.

So, what do you think? Will this make a difference? Will Notes/Domino still have a future? Leave your comments and feedback below.

UPDATE 08.12.2018: This no longer works. There’s another way you have to do this now. I will create a blog posting about that soon.

Since my last posting about what Nametest (and such quizzes and tests) do to the profile of your friends, I’ve gotten a lot of private messages asking me how to block them.

First I have to point out something: The data that the company behind nametests, namely Social Sweethearts (now that’s an ironic name for ya), already has collected about you and your friends is not gonna be affected by this move. They already have it. However, this can prevent them for gathering even more data about you in the future (you do add more and more data as time goes by).

I’m sure you have some “friends” who insists on still taking these tests, even if you have pointed out that they are helping to violate privacy of their Facebook contacts (probably defending themselves with “there will always be threats and viruses, and this is just for fun,” not realising the reason there will always be threats and viruses are because of people like them).

These are good steps to take to prevent your data from being snapped up by unwanted third parties.. These tips can also be used for any other app your friends use that you don’t feel comfortable with. So I hope this is useful for you.

Note: These tricks won’t stop you from seeing that your friends post the annoying results of their annoying tests. If you don’t want to see those postings at all you either have to unfriend those friends, or install FB Purity. The latter makes it possible for you to clean up your news feed to look just like you want it to.

These instructions are done in a web browser on a computer. The menus will be different in the mobile app, but the principle will be the same.

Block information that you don’t want apps to see

Go to to the pull down menu in the upper right corner of Facebook and click on it:

In the menu that appears, click on Settings:

A new page will open up. There is a menu on the left side. Click on the menu item called Apps:

Yet another page will open up. Find the section called Apps others use:

Click on the Edit button. This screen will appear:

Make sure that you uncheck all the check boxes, so that it looks just like the picture above (click on a check box to uncheck it). When you are finished, hit Save.

Set other public information to be private

Note that all public data you have on Facebook profile will still be available to these apps. You can however change it so that only you can see the information about your self such as gender, relationship status and so on:

Open your Facebook profile

On your cover photo is a button called Update Info:

Click on it and a new page opens up.

In the left side menu you see several categories for information about yourself. Click on the category where the information you want to change privacy settings for is located. In this example I’m choosing Contact and Basic Info:

I’ve decided that I want to change the privacy settings about my cell phone:

When I hover the mouse button over this setting, I get a link called Edit on the right:

When I click on it I can now edit the information. In the upper right corner there will be an icon signifying how public this information is:

I click on the globe and get a menu where I can choose who I want to see this information. Since I don’t want any of my friends’ apps to see it, I choose Only Me:

Then I hit Save.

You can go through all your information in this way, and control exactly who should be able to see what. If you set Only me your friend’s apps won’t be able to go through it.

Make your friends list private

If you don’t want the apps to read your friends list, you can prevent that in the following way:

Open your Facebook profile

On your cover photo is a button called Update Info:

Click on it and a new page opens up.

In the left side menu you see several categories for information about yourself. Click on Contact and Basic Info:

A new page opens up. Scroll down to the Friends section and klikk on the pencil on the far right and choose Edit privacy:

You can set the privacy level for who can see your friend list, who should be able to see people, pages and lists you follow and who should able to see your followers. Behind each of these you have a pull down menu where you can set the privacy settings. Click on each of them and set them to Only me:

When all are set to this, click Done.

Now your friends list should be safe from those pesky apps.

Go nuclear!

If you want to block these apps completely, you have another step you can take. You can go to the section called Apps, Websites and Plug-ins:

If you click Edit, you are given the choice of turning off access for all services like this. Be warned, however, that the following will happen:

You will not be able to log into websites or applications using Facebook.

You will not be able to log in to mobile games or applications using Facebook.

Your friends won’t be able to interact and share with you using apps and websites.

Apps you’ve logged in to (with Facebook or anonymously) will be removed.

What if You’ve already started using Nametests?

What if you’ve already used Nametests and thereby given it access to your own profile, as well as those for your friends. How do you remove it?

Go to the Apps menu:

At the top of the page you see this:

Find nametests.com in the list of apps and clik on the x to the right of it to delete it:

When you are asked if you want to delete it, confirm.

So it’s up to you how well you want to protect yourself. The best way is to inform your friends what apps like Nametests do (and there’s so much we don’t know what Nametests do with your data) that they shouldn’t use them. If they refuse, you can always unfriend them, but that could create social awkward situations…

Did you find this useful? Leave a comment in the or send me a message. And I appreciate it if you share this posting.

In the past two weeks a lot of my Facebook contacts have been posting this “What Would I Look Like as a Movie star” results from a test taken via the Nametests app. DO NOT TAKE THESE TESTS!

Consider this. A person says the following to you: “Give me access to all your personal information, your photos, the contact information about all your friends and everything you write or say in the future, and I will tell you what celebrity you look like.”

What would you say? My guess is: Fuck off!

However, when people are given the same choice on Facebook, they say: “Yes, let me know what celebrity I look like!”

Do people really think Nametests (that’s the perpetrator for this test) make tests like this out of the kindness of their hearts? When you give Nametests access to your Facebook profile, you have to accept several pages of terms, that are written in such a difficult lawyer language that you really don’t understand what you are saying yest to. But hey, it’s all for fun, right?

Wrong! You are giving them access to not only your information, but also the information of your friends. They immediately start searching through your friends list on Facebook, gathering whatever information they can that your friends haven’t locked securely away. This is most likely sold to spammers who will use the information to things I’m sure your friends wouldn’t like.

So why do you take that risk just because you want to take a silly test?

What you’re really doing is this: you’re “purchasing” a test about you, and “pay” by allowing them access to your friend list and Facebook wall—including all your past, current and future posts.

So what if you’ve already used Nametests? Is it too late? No, you can remove it by going to your Security Settings in Facebook, find the lists of apps you have given access to your account and then remove Nametests and all other apps you’ve given similar access. Get rid of them, now!

Rule of thumb: If an app asks you for access to your Facebook account, with a lot of legal mumbo jumbo language, do no install it! Simple as that. Send me a photo instead, and I will tell you what celebrity you look like. And I won’t even ask for any of your or your Facebook friends’ personal information.

As an IBM Champion who is visiting a lot of IBM customers, I often get asked questions about challenges that the users have with some of the products. Very often I can give them the answer. But sometimes I have to go to IBM to ask the product managers for help. And other times I turn to the wonderful IBM Collaboration Solutions community. So, here are my challenges at for the customer I’m working with this week:

When you save a file directly from Microsoft Office and up into Files in Connections, you can’t share this file with external users. When you try to share it afterwards, you get a strange error message. This means you have to save the file locally first, and then upload it to Files via the web GUI.

When you are in the Windows Explorer plugin, and you drag a file locally from your computer and over to Files, you cannot choose to share the file externally if the Connections solution is running on prem. This actually works in the plugin if the plugin is connected to the cloud version of Connections

While you can print a wiki page, you cannot print an entire wiki. Is there a way to do that?

Why can’t you print a file from the Files web GUI? You can’t print it in preview mode either. I was expecting to be able to print a file when I opened it in IBM Docs, but no. I can only print it to PDF! Why?

I’m not sure I understand the process of adding external users. My customer says that when they add an external user, this user hase to log on at least once before they can start adding this user to communities, or start sharing files with her Is this true?

There are two types of status postings you can just ignore, even if they try to tell you that you are a bad person for not sharing them.

I bet 5 of my friends won’t…

I’m sure you’ve seen these lots of times. One of your friends has copied the text of a status update from someone else and pasted it. They are usually about cancer or depression. After a long text describing the illness you get this at the bottom:

“I’m going to make a bet, without being pessimistic, that out of my Facebook friends that less than 5 will take the time to put this on their wall to help raise awareness of and for those who have [insert illness here]. You just have to copy it from my wall and paste it to yours ”

So, not only content with shouting out that “hey, look what good person I am for doing this,” they also prey upon the conscience of their friends. I mean, who wants to appear to be a bad person not caring about the suffering of others, right?

Wrong! The next time someone post this, just ignore it. You are doing the world (and your newsfeed) a service. And you are a better person than the one who tried to guilt you into sharing.

The only thing you are telling the world by posting it is that not only are you a person who thinks posting a status update about an illness will help fight it. If you really want to make a difference for people with [insert illness here] donate money to organisations working with said infliction. Or volunteer for these organisations. If you want to post and brag about it, that’s fine. But do it without telling everybody how great you are and how awful they are for not doing it.

Actually, posting something like this is the least effective way to fight cancer, depression or what have you. Stop it!

I want to teach my students how fast a photo spreads

I’m sure you’ve seen this one a lot, especially lately. A well meaning teacher says she wants to teach the kids of her class how fast a photo is spread on the internet. So they post a photo of a sign with this message, and tell everyone to share it. And since you think it’s important that the kids learn how to be careful on the internet, you do just that. DON’T!

First of all, this meme has been going on for over 8 years now (and a lot of times the poster is fake and it’s just someone having fun, and not a teacher). There are hundred teachers who have done it, so there’s no need to do it anymore. We know how fast a photo can spread.

My suggestion is this: Instead of posting your own meme, teach your kids how to google it. They can then use google, find the articles telling how fast a photo spreads, and then learn that they should be careful with photos on the internet. They also learn that they don’t need to spam others with things like this.

Another reason why you shouldn’t spam the newsfeed of your friends with this is that this has been done so much now that people are tired of it. It’s become spam! So most people have started to ignore it. So the more who post these, the more they will be ignored, and then you teach the children that photos are NOT spread as fast as their teacher claims.

So stop sharing these photos as well.

Now, if someone could just teach the parents about being careful with photos on the internet, we might get somewhere…

As some of you know, I turned 100% freelance last year, and my income is now all down to me in my pursuit of assignments. If you want to book me, either as a user trainer for effective use of mail and calendar (Outlook IBM Notes or Gmail), general courses about IBM Notes, IBM Connections, general collaboration, social media, Microsoft Office, writing and photography, as a developer/architect or writer and photographer, get in touch.

I’m gonna be more active around here from now on. So first a recap about what I’ve been doing lately.

November and December was filled up with me doing user training in IBM Connections for the worker’s union Industrienergi, on behalf of Item. The feedback was great and I’m going to do even more user training next week and later in February. Last time I taught them their new intranet, which is running on IBM Connections, the news stream, how to stay updated on what goes on in IBM Connections and Files. For the latter I also helped them set up the IBM Connections plugins for Windows, Outlook and IBM Notes, as well as the mobile app. The reason I focused mostly on Files is that in my experience that is the ticket in for most users. That’s what makes them really see the potential in a collaborative solution as Connections. The next courses will be all about Activities, another neat feature in Connections.

I also did an IBM Notes project for a company just outside of town in December and January. It was good old fashioned Notes development, with lotusscript and Notes design elements. It was great fun, but I’m trying to get them to see the advantage of starting to go in a more web enabled direction.

As the leader of the Norwegian IBM Collaborations Software User Group (ISBG) I’ve also been busy arranging meetings and webinars. All our webinars can be seen on our Youtube channel. The webinar is the last Tuesday of every month. If you want to do a presentation, please get in touch with me.

I’ve also done loads of journalistic and photographic assignments. Some of them will be presented in this blog during the spring.

And lastly: If you are thinking about going to IBM’s Think conference this year, get in touch with me as well. I can give you a $100 discount.